Re: can i translate Informix-4GL to 100% Java (1.1) ?

"David K. Killough" <killougd@ix.netcom.com> wrote: :I have half a million lines of 4GL and I need to migrate to Java. Is :there any utility I can use to translate my *.per and *.4gl files to :java??? Based on my knowledge of both, it seems like it shouldn't be :that tough. As Richard Stanford said there is realy no way you can convert a state driven application automatically to an event driven one which is required for a true conversion to Java. Many have tried (with other languages than Java - even one withing 4GL), but the results are allways less than satisfactory to say the least. There is but one way to do this. Do it yourself. What we are doing is to continue to let users run the 4GL application via a terminal emulator. This may even be one written in Java that could run in a browser if you wish. The SCO Tarantella system is one product that has such a tool, plus some other supporting functionality for the purpose (we don't plan to use it, but just so you know it's something out there). Then we are converting a program, or a set of functions within one or more current 4GL programs, at a time. Effectively we look at the spesifications and write a completely new program, often making it better or with extra new functionality. The key here is that the database remains the same, so both 4GL and Java based programs can be used simultaneously. Also the existence of the previous programs and the database reduces the initial analysis and part of the design face to one of functional GUI design. If you have done a lot of that allready you can do the design quite fast. If not you will have to experiment for quite some time first to get it right. You will also find, using the right tools, that you can program quite quickly. Look at Symantec Visual Cafe and IBM Visual Age for Java. I haven't seen Borland's JBuilder but that may also be usefull. Don't ever even think of any Microsoft product for Java. That would be to go realy over board. If you aren't up to speed on object oriented design, or even worse on event driven GUI programming, you realy have to study hard on that. There are lots of good books arround, begining with Bertrand Meyers book on object oriented design. Some of those on design patterns are also very usefull. For GUI design Microsoft have some good ones. During the conversion periode users will of course have to relate to both character based 4GL applications and new GUI applications. This is but a minor inconvenience for our users. To use the programs themselves is no problem. When they have learned one they have basically learned them all both in 4GL and GUI. It's generally the data to be updated that's the key to the application and must be learned. That's the same in both cases anyway so the users handle it easily. We do of course expect to have to trow away again the first applications we are writing at some future time and do them again. This is the kind of thing that I wouldn't expect to get right the first time. A major effort? Yes sure, but the results will be so much better than staying with 4GL that it's worth it for us. We resell our applications to many customers. If you have inhouse applications the issues are of course quite different. Even then I would however seriously consider the route of doing at least parts of the applications in Java. Look at that option when new functionality is required. May be you will find you can do it quite quickly in Java when you have learned the tools. We expect to be much more productive in Java than in 4GL generating better programs with less code. We aren't there yet, so I don't realy know, but there is every reason to believe so with the effort companies are now putting into Java development tools. There is some stench from the language itself (read Meyers book and you will understand some of the problems), but the tools people are saving the grace with Java Beans as an important ingredient. Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org